Four large fires burning in Arizona

Map of fires in Arizona 10:00 p.m. MDT, May 13, 2012

(Updated at 12:25 a.m. MDT, May 15, 2012)

At least four large fires are burning in Arizona (see the map above): Gladiator Fire, Sunflower Fire, Bull Flat Fire, and Elwood Fire. From Phoenix, the fires are north, northeast and east of the city. Eight of the eleven large air tankers on federal exclusive use contracts are working the fires, leaving only three for the rest of the United States. Aside from the firefighters currently assigned to the fires, an additional ten 20-person Type 1 hand crews have been ordered through the National Interagency Coordination Center to be prepositioned in various locations in the Southwest Geographical Area, comprised of Arizona and New Mexico.

Gladiator Fire, May 14, 2012. Photo by Michelle Fidler, SWIMT

Monday night the following fires were mapped by N144Z, a U.S. Forest Service infrared imaging aircraft: Sunflower, Gladiator, and Elwood. More accurate acreage calculations should be available on Tuesday.

The map below shows Arizona and the smoke that is being created by the fires.

Smoke map, Arizona, 6:31 p.m. MDT, May 14,. 2012

Below are more details about the fires, supplied by the Arizona Emergency Network and the Southwest Coordination Center.:

The fire is burning in brush, oak, chaparral, and timber. It began as a structure fire Sunday morning in the Bradshaw Mountains one mile east of Crown King, AZ. The American Red Cross opened a shelter at Mayer High School, 17300 E. Mule Deer Dr., in Mayer. Logistics support of the fire response has transferred to Prescott dispatch.

On Sunday at 4:45 PM, the Incident Command staff ordered mandatory evacuations from the town of Crown King. The designated evacuation center was Mayor High School – 17300 E Mule Deer Drive, Mayer. American Red Cross personnel will be on hand to assist those arriving from Crown King. American Red Cross evacuation information is 928-237-6751. The American Red Cross CANNOT provide information on the fire status or evacuation order specifics. If someone is trying to locate family or friends from the Crown King area, this IS the number to call.

On Sunday the fire overran a portion of the Crown King Road making the road inaccessible.

Night shift will continue to burn north on FR 201. Day shift will continue to burn and hold along FR 201. Additional protection for Cross F ranch will be provided. APS power lines (345 KV) are threatened from two directions and will require new strategy. Mazatzal Mining District requires indirect tactics.

Tankers currently flying out of PRC (Gladiator Fire)
6,7,12,43,45,55.
6 was not flying today, possibly due to a hydraulic leak it had Saturday, it was parked at the main ramp all day.
A Columbia Helicopters Civvie Chinook arrived around 6pm.
A Sikorsky Skycrane has been here for a few hours too, both helos are parked at the West Ramp.

A SEAT was also working on a small (30 acre) fire around Dewey-Humboldt this weekend.

AirBombing,

I doubt the Canadairs would work, at least up here in Prescott, as I don’t think there’s any large bodies of water that are accessible for them to land and refill.

I will try to keep regular updates on the air tankers and any ground movements I see on http://www.phxspotters.com and http://www.felipe-garcia.net. I will try to go out to the airport in the morning to get some pictures before the heat haze rolls in, but I will be out of town for most of the day.

I saw no evidence of it flying, but I guess it could have flown between 1 and 5 pm or so on a post-maintenance checkup. The last thing you want is an engine quitting on takeoff and the subsequent Phos-Chek drop on Willow Creek.

11 airtankers is by no means enough to cover just the state of Arizona, let alone the other states that are on fire. I feel like it won’t take long for the ANG MAFFS birds to get mobilized as well as the Conair planes. I did plenty of research for my senior design project (an airtanker), and we found plenty of studies from several years back that say the same: the airtanker fleet is ageing, the airplanes are not built for this mission, and the fleet size is inadequate. And I feel that things would be a lot worse if CDF didn’t have its own fleet of S2Fs.

I don’t know about the specifics of the fires elsewhere, but I feel like a really serious effort is needed to contain the Gladiator fire, because let’s face it: Crown King is 20ish miles from Prescott. Let it spread and then you have the Indian Fire all over again (which coincidentally started 10 years ago today).